Sovereign of Stars (13 page)

Of course, knowing the reason for their
discrepancies did not cause them to sting any less.
The gods can
be monstrous cruel sometimes,
Senenmut mused, jerking his body
upright and setting his shoulders well back.

“The King's Great Steward has eaten a sour fig,”
Nehesi said when he noticed Senenmut's scowl.

Senenmut was about to rejoin, but one of the ornate
double doors to the Pharaoh's chamber gave a small, high-pitched
creak as it opened abruptly. The fan-bearer Batiret peered out at
them, frowning.

“Maatkare is not within.”

Nehesi grinned at the woman as he leaned one massive
shoulder against the closed door. “I know, sweet lady. I am her
chief guard, after all.”

“Then why are you not guarding her?”

A tiny laugh escaped through Senenmut's nose.
Batiret had been in Hatshepsut's service for nearly ten years now.
In these very chambers she had grown from a skinny, wide-eyed girl
to a woman of simple yet frank beauty, with an open, questioning
stare and a serious angle to her dark brows that other men seemed
to find enchanting. She was impertinent, but with good reason. Was
she not the handmaid of the king? Had she not earned the Pharaoh's
most intimate trust, risking her own life to taste food and wine in
those dark, early days?

Batiret made a shooing motion with small,
golden-brown hands. “Off the Good God's door. You will get nothing
from me. It takes more than ox muscles to impress this lady.”

“Oh-ho! Senenmut, our little cat likes to hiss.”

“She is not my little cat, Nehesi. You are welcome
to get yourself clawed and bitten; leave me out of it. And leave
off her. The poor lady is only doing her work.”

“As you should be, Chief Guardsman,” Batiret said.
“Shall I tell my lady you could not attend her because you were too
busy looking for a flower to sniff?”

The heat rose to Senenmut's face.

“By Set!” Nehesi roared in appreciation. “She has a
tongue like a dock worker! As it happens, Lady Batiret, the Good
God is right behind me. I left her with a contingent of my best
men. They accompany her and the High Priest of Amun. She summoned
all of us.”

A soft yet masculine voice called from somewhere
inside the king's chamber. “She did.”

“You've got a lover in there,” Nehesi said. He
clutched at his heart, feigning grave injury.

“I have no such thing. If I had, I wouldn't be dull
enough to bring him to my lady's chambers for a tryst. What kind of
a fool do you take me for, Nehesi?”

Batiret stepped back, let the door swing wide to
admit them. She jerked back against it abruptly to prevent Nehesi
brushing her skin as he entered.

Ineni sat upon one long couch in the middle of
Hatshepsut's chamber. Its legs and back were aged ebony, black as a
starless sky, carved with lines of lotus and papyrus blossoms. He
did not lounge against that ornate backrest, nor lean one elbow on
the silk cushions, but held himself straight and alert. In his
eyes, keen and penetrating for all the lines surrounding them,
Senenmut saw a glimmer of amusement at Nehesi's and Batiret's
exchange.

“Lord Ineni.” Senenmut clasped his forearm warmly.
“It has been too long.”

“You are a busy man these days, Senenmut.”

“I do the tasks the Good God sets me, as do we
all.”

Batiret fetched a painted clay jug from the
blue-shadowed shaft beneath a windcatcher. When she poured, the
wine was so cool Senenmut could smell its inviting crispness. He
raised his bowl to his lips gratefully; the day was hot, even in
the king's chambers.

“And what task has the Good God set us today, I
wonder,” Ineni said, tasting his own wine.

Senenmut recalled Hatshepsut's growing agitation at
last night's feast, the dark slits of her eyes as she watched the
tjati whispering into Opet's ear. He could not say,
The king is
frightened again.
Not even to Ineni. It was disloyal, but more:
Senenmut was not at all certain Hatshepsut had no reason to fear.
The harem was fairly brimming with women who might conceivably
provide an ambitious noble a path to the throne. Nine years had
passed since Iset's death – ah, and Nebseny's, and Ankhhor's.
Hatshepsut's wrath had been swift and efficient, but men's memories
seldom lasted nine years. Not when Egypt's throne hung before them,
a prize they might yet win.

Senenmut had puzzled it all out last night,
remaining awake nearly until dawn, staring into the darkness of the
unlit chamber while Hatshepsut turned in restless sleep beside him.
The harem was full of royal and semi-royal women; Hatshepsut could
not banish them as she had Mutnofret. To do so would only bring
about the wrath of near-countless great houses, and foreign kings
besides. Hatshepsut may feast the harem and keep the treasury of
the House of Women overfull, may send them musicians and sweets and
Egypt's finest seamstresses, but there was one thing she could not
provide her women. They had no chance now to bear the Pharaoh's
children, and thus to further their families' various glories. No
chance until young Thutmose came of age, and that was still some
four or five years away, at least. Many of them would be too old
for children by Thutmose's majority, and those who were still
fertile may be too aged to spark the typically fickle interest of a
very young man. In the House of Women, Hatshepsut had a pot over a
high blaze, and it was a breath away from boiling over. How long
before they began petitioning for release – for marriage to
powerful houses? How long before great men began to woo them in
earnest, to use the women's royal blood and their children as
claims to the throne?

And however will I stop them?

Batiret saved Senenmut the trouble of trying to
formulate a reply to Ineni's question. She hastened to set her jug
on the floor and made her way toward the doors well before Senenmut
caught the sound of Hatshepsut and her guards returning. The
fan-bearer swung both doors wide to welcome the king.

Hatshepsut wore a man's kilt in the day's excessive
heat. The floor-length, bright white linen was overlaid with a long
beaded apron. The vibrant blue-and-green polished stone feathers of
a vulture spread its wings across her chest. The pectoral was large
enough to cover her breasts completely, offset by a counterweight
that swung by a thick gold chain down the length of her short but
elegant back. The double crown of the Two Lands, white and red and
spired like an obelisk, rose from her brow.

Batiret clapped loudly to summon the king's
body-maids; they emerged from the bedchamber in a rustle of airy
gowns, took the crown from her, loosed the pectoral's chain and
caught it as it slipped from Hatshepsut's body.

“The apron, too – here. And my wig.”

“Your wig, Majesty? With these men here to see you,
and...”

“It's hotter than beneath a spice-seller's
kilt.”

Hatshepsut pulled the wig from her own brow and
tossed it at one of her women. The wig's hundred tiny braids
separated as it flew, spread in the stifling air like the arms of
startled women. The body-maid let loose a small squeal of dismay as
she snatched it to her breast.

“My apologies to the High Priest of Amun. My old
nurse was never able to beat the coarse language from my tongue.
The gods know she tried.”

Hapuseneb the High Priest bowed. A vast collection
of medallions swung from a tangle of cords round his neck:
protections and beseechings of all kinds, all to channel the power
of Amun. “Majesty, with the offering you just made at Amun's temple
I am prepared to forgive your tongue and your nurse most
anything.”

“I take it you know Lord Ineni, High Priest?”

“Ah, an accomplished architect and tomb-builder, if
I am not mistaken. Amun smiles on you.”

“Hapuseneb.” Ineni inclined his head.

Hatshepsut took a bowl of wine from Batiret, then
dropped peremptorily onto one of the couches. “It is too hot to
play-act as coy politicians today. Let us be forthright, shall we?
Ineni is a good influence amongst the nobles, but as my reign goes
on, everlasting if it be the gods' will, men will find their own
ambitions too great a temptation to ignore. I already faced that
trouble once, and I will not face it again. How, then, do we curb
Egypt's nobles?”

At such a frank question, the men were momentarily
speechless, grasping for some solution to Hatshepsut's problem. But
as the cool wine flowed more freely, so did their words, their
ideas, until the king's chamber grew lively with their voices and
the emphatic gestures of their hands, even in the stifling
heat.

“I know noble men,” Nehesi said. “They respect great
wealth more than anything else – more even than kings, or gods,
with apologies to you, Majesty, and to you, High Priest.”

“Maatkare has made Egypt wealthier than any king
before her,” Hapuseneb pointed out. “But this wealth takes the form
of cattle and cloth, trade goods and increased yields of crops. It
is real, ah, as real as any gold bauble. Yet men like Ankhhor do
not see such wealth, I think. They see only the glint of gems, or
the fineness of a gown's weave. It's treasure they must see in
order to recognize – and fear – your power.”

Hatshepsut leaned back against a cushion. Her
breasts heaved with her sigh. “And how do I convert Egypt's trade
wealth into trinkets shiny enough to impress a lot of fat old
men?”

“Hiring craftsmen to make wagons full of jewelry and
fine cloth, just for the fun of the thing?” Nehesi shook his head.
“It would be too ostentatious, even for a king. They would see at
once that you were trying very hard to prove something. Any
advantage you might gain from the wealth would be lost in appearing
less than confident before them. No – what you need is another
campaign. Into a rich land, this time – richer than Kush. You need
to capture treasure, bring it back in triumph.”

The men went very still at his words. Ineni swirled
the wine in his bowl, his eyes thoughtful, considering. Senenmut
glanced at Hatshepsut; her face had blanched.

“He may be right,” Hapuseneb admitted. “Kush seemed
to fortify you, not only in the eyes of the army, but, if you will
forgive my presumption, Majesty, in your own eyes. Another campaign
– north this time, perhaps...”

“No.” She turned her face to Senenmut, held his eyes
with her own dark stare. He recalled how, years ago, she returned
with her fleet in triumph and paraded through Waset's streets at
the head of her army. That night he had clutched her to his chest
in the pale gray twilight, out in the garden beneath the forgiving
coolness of the sycamore, while she sobbed out the story of the man
she had killed – the man, his woman, his child. It was all she
could talk about, all she could think about, for weeks
afterward.

“Great Lady,” Nehesi said, “a campaign can do much
for your ends. Hatti has always been rich in copper, and...”

Batiret bent close to Senenmut's ear. “Lord Steward,
your man is here. He begs your attention.”

“My man?” Senenmut looked around. The slant of light
falling in through the wind-catcher's bars angled more acutely than
he'd thought to see. It was a darker golden hue, too. Far more time
had passed than he had realized. He was expected to meet with his
scribe Kynebu nearly an hour ago. Senenmut made his excuses to the
circle, now coming very near to squabbling with their king, and
allowed Batiret to accompany him to the chamber doors.

Kynebu, a smart lad of sixteen years with a fine,
steady hand and a good head for numbers, stood in the king's hall
tapping a fat scroll against his palm. “Master Senenmut. You forgot
our appointment, I think.”

“The Pharaoh's work has kept me. Still keeps me, I'm
afraid.”

The boy smiled in his usual good cheer, held out the
scroll. “No matter; I've finished the work for you.”

“There's a good man. Remind me to double your
wages.”

“Triple them, I think. I made an extra copy of the
plans in case you should find it useful, and recopied your notes so
they are more legible.”

Senenmut frowned. “I am accounted a more than fair
scribe, Kynebu.”

“No doubt, Master!”

“One does not rise to my position with a sloppy
hand.”

Kynebu winked, and drew from his sash a small bundle
wrapped in stiff, greasy papyrus of a coarse, common make. He
tossed it to his master. When Senenmut opened it, the aroma of nuts
spiced in honey rose up to meet him.

“The Great Scribe's favorite sweet, because he is a
good and worthy master.”

“Bribery does not become a man of your station,”
Senenmut said. But he tipped a few of the nuts from the papyrus
into his mouth. The sweetness invigorated him at once. “Ah. I could
face a dozen more hot afternoons doing the Pharaoh's work now.”

“So, triple my wages, then?”

“Get on, you. I will send you more work
tomorrow.”

Senenmut quickly emptied the package of the
remaining spiced nuts, chewing carefully as Batiret closed the door
firmly on the praises Kynebu sang to her. The thick scroll crinkled
where he'd tucked it under his arm. He pulled it free and shook it
in the air to dissipate the moisture of his own sweat from the
papyrus.

“What are you waving about there?” Hatshepsut
called. “A sword for the campaign these three would have me
undertake?”

Senenmut stopped chewing. His hand tightened on the
scroll. He swallowed reflexively, astonished at his own
inspiration, and winced as sharp bits of spiced nut scraped down
his throat.

At last he managed, “A sword? A campaign? Ah,
perhaps it is, at that.”

Hatshepsut summoned her maids to clear away the food
and wine; Senenmut unrolled his scroll atop the king's table,
weighted its corners with their silver drinking bowls. The king
leaned toward the table, humming her interest. Even Batiret,
waiting some distance apart with her lady's great fan of white
plumes, craned her neck to see. Their interest was gratifying, but
it was Hatshepsut's reaction Senenmut cherished. Her face grew very
still, eyes widening, mouth compressing into a tight, pale line. He
watched the pulse over her collarbone speed.